WEBVTT 00:01.740 --> 00:05.020 Professor David Blight: The last book you're 00:05.018 --> 00:08.098 reading in this course is by a great journalist, 00:08.100 --> 00:11.350 Nick Lemann. It's called Redemption: 00:11.347 --> 00:14.557 The Last Battle of the Civil War. 00:14.560 --> 00:18.880 There seems to be a contest right now in writing about and 00:18.880 --> 00:22.670 publishing about the violence of Reconstruction. 00:22.670 --> 00:26.200 It's really been discovered by American publishers and 00:26.199 --> 00:28.329 certainly by American writers. 00:28.330 --> 00:32.980 There are no less than three new books out on either the 00:32.982 --> 00:36.622 Colfax Massacre, which we'll talk about in a 00:36.619 --> 00:39.569 minute, or what Lemann does mostly in 00:39.569 --> 00:43.749 his book, which is the story of Mississippi--sometimes called 00:43.747 --> 00:46.847 the Shotgun Policy, sometimes called the 00:51.023 --> 00:55.903 whereby the white Democrats of Mississippi took back control of 00:55.901 --> 00:59.851 that state, largely by terrorist violence, 00:59.849 --> 01:02.449 political violence, in 1875. 01:02.450 --> 01:06.350 The titles of these books strike me. 01:06.349 --> 01:11.079 Redemption: The Last Battle of the Civil 01:11.075 --> 01:14.095 War. Charles Lane's book, 01:14.099 --> 01:19.229 a good journalistic popular writer, a whole book on the 01:19.227 --> 01:25.397 Colfax Massacre entitled The Day Freedom Died--one day. 01:25.400 --> 01:29.480 And there's another book by a young, New York private high 01:29.478 --> 01:32.558 school teacher, proof that good books can be 01:32.555 --> 01:35.815 written by anyone, The Colfax Massacre: 01:35.818 --> 01:39.628 The Untold Story of Black Power, White Terror and the 01:39.634 --> 01:41.914 Death of Reconstruction. 01:41.910 --> 01:44.610 Now all those titles are true. 01:44.610 --> 01:49.500 It's not the redemption, of course, that you hear about 01:49.504 --> 01:53.224 in Bob Marley's Redemption Song, 01:53.220 --> 01:56.630 but I might recommend that you put Marley on while you're 01:56.627 --> 01:58.267 reading about this stuff. 01:58.270 --> 02:03.770 It might be a nice antidote. 02:03.770 --> 02:07.330 No, I'm not going to sing it. 02:07.329 --> 02:13.829 But I am going to start with a very brief little poem, 02:13.826 --> 02:20.196 one of the best illustrations in poetry I know of, 02:20.199 --> 02:24.339 of this idea that revolutions can go backward, 02:24.342 --> 02:28.302 that revolutions usually do go backwards, 02:28.300 --> 02:32.510 for awhile, that revolutions always cause 02:32.506 --> 02:34.816 counter-revolutions. 02:34.820 --> 02:37.370 It's a poem by Langston Hughes. 02:37.370 --> 02:42.700 He wrote it right near the end of his life, in 1965-- note the 02:42.698 --> 02:47.778 date. He entitled it "Emancipation," 02:47.780 --> 02:53.740 and then a subtitle: "Long View Negro." 02:53.740 --> 02:57.280 Two simple verses: "Emancipation, 02:57.278 --> 03:02.248 1865, sighted through the telescope of dreams, 03:02.253 --> 03:05.353 looms larger, so much larger, 03:05.349 --> 03:09.439 so it seems, than truth can be. 03:09.439 --> 03:16.659 But turn the telescope around, look through the larger end, 03:16.655 --> 03:22.005 and wonder why, what was so large becomes so 03:22.005 --> 03:26.775 small again." The metaphor is powerful, 03:26.779 --> 03:30.259 if vexing. Look through the opposite end 03:30.263 --> 03:35.053 of a telescope. Look back at history and not 03:35.050 --> 03:40.690 forward, and wonder why what was such a dream, 03:40.692 --> 03:46.712 what was so large, can become so small again. 03:46.710 --> 03:51.050 Now, when that Fifteenth Amendment passed, 03:51.046 --> 03:55.696 that I talked about briefly the other day, 03:55.699 --> 03:58.579 there were just amazing celebrations, 03:58.584 --> 04:01.794 when it was finally ratified, in 1870, 04:01.790 --> 04:03.950 all over the place. 04:03.950 --> 04:09.130 I'll only cite a couple. 04:09.129 --> 04:14.559 Grant in his Message to Congress in effect said 04:14.556 --> 04:19.036 Reconstruction was now largely over. 04:19.040 --> 04:21.540 Frederick Douglass, though he wasn't thrilled with 04:21.542 --> 04:24.402 the fact that it was the most conservative version of the 04:24.403 --> 04:27.883 Fifteenth Amendment and so on, nevertheless said, 04:27.875 --> 04:31.535 "We can now breathe a new atmosphere; 04:31.540 --> 04:36.880 we have a new earth beneath and a new sky above." 04:36.880 --> 04:38.180 That's a dream. 04:38.180 --> 04:42.100 04:42.100 --> 04:49.100 One Republican newspaper called it the nation's second birth; 04:49.100 --> 04:54.480 second founding. And Wendell Phillips, 04:54.475 --> 04:57.205 again the Massachusetts abolitionist, 04:57.211 --> 05:01.311 said it was now the real birthday of the nation because 05:01.314 --> 05:05.574 now the Declaration of Independence applied to all. 05:05.569 --> 05:10.729 Now, that was placing a great deal of hope in a somewhat 05:10.732 --> 05:14.302 limited amendment, to say the least. 05:14.300 --> 05:17.830 That's 1870. Now go ahead just five years 05:17.830 --> 05:20.280 with me. This is the period now of 05:20.282 --> 05:23.282 Southern redemption, defined of course as the 05:23.278 --> 05:26.958 Southern white Democratic Party's counter-revolution in 05:26.955 --> 05:30.355 taking back control of its state governments. 05:30.360 --> 05:33.060 Happens very quickly in some Southern states. 05:33.060 --> 05:38.840 Some are redeemed as early as 1870 by the Democrats and the 05:38.835 --> 05:42.515 last three or so not until 1876/77. 05:42.519 --> 05:46.219 But think of what you just heard there, that almost 05:46.224 --> 05:49.634 unfathomable hope, rooted in this Voting Rights 05:49.632 --> 05:52.142 Amendment, and then listen to this 05:52.140 --> 05:55.590 statement from the floor of Congress by one of the most 05:55.594 --> 05:58.664 brilliant young black politicians who got himself 05:58.664 --> 06:01.994 elected-- among those hundreds who got elected, 06:01.990 --> 06:06.860 among the sixteen who got elected to Congress-- John Roy 06:06.856 --> 06:10.586 Lynch, a former slave, self-taught, 06:10.594 --> 06:15.574 he educated himself; like Frederick Douglass there's 06:15.573 --> 06:18.633 mysteries about the brilliance of this guy. 06:18.629 --> 06:22.399 But he's elected to Congress when he's twenty-six, 06:22.397 --> 06:25.777 from Mississippi, under Mississippi's Radical 06:25.781 --> 06:29.781 Reconstruction government, so long as it lasted. 06:29.779 --> 06:33.469 He's still there in 1875, and on the floor of the 06:33.468 --> 06:37.698 Congress-- which was then, as you'll see in a moment, 06:37.704 --> 06:41.634 after the '74 Election, now ruled by a majority of 06:41.631 --> 06:45.801 Democrats-- he looks them in the eye and he says, 06:45.800 --> 06:49.900 "Think of it for a moment, my colleagues. 06:49.899 --> 06:52.969 When I leave my home in Mississippi to come to the 06:52.969 --> 06:56.539 capital of the nation to take part in the deliberations of 06:56.540 --> 06:59.490 this House, and to participate with you in 06:59.491 --> 07:03.181 making laws for the government of this great republic, 07:03.180 --> 07:06.460 I am treated, not as an American citizen, 07:06.463 --> 07:09.753 but as a brute, forced to occupy a filthy 07:09.746 --> 07:12.796 smoking car, both night and day, 07:12.801 --> 07:16.281 with drunkards, gamblers and criminals, 07:16.283 --> 07:19.413 and for what? Not that I am unable or 07:19.409 --> 07:23.229 unwilling to pay my way, not that I am obnoxious in my 07:23.233 --> 07:27.133 personal appearance or disrespectful in my conduct, 07:27.129 --> 07:33.599 but simply because I happen to be of a darker complexion." 07:33.600 --> 07:36.720 Now here's the irony and the point. 07:36.720 --> 07:41.300 The majority of those men he was speaking to that day in the 07:41.295 --> 07:44.885 Congress, in their minds, when they heard him, 07:44.894 --> 07:48.284 to the extent they listened when he said that, 07:48.279 --> 07:51.739 I think we can safely assume were thinking, 07:51.740 --> 07:55.940 "yeah, that's just exactly the way you should be treated." 07:55.940 --> 08:00.770 08:00.770 --> 08:06.110 Now, to 1873 for the moment. 08:06.110 --> 08:10.070 The day freedom died, according to Charles Lane's 08:10.072 --> 08:13.542 book, is the day of the Colfax Massacre. 08:13.540 --> 08:17.620 That day--I wouldn't quite say freedom died on one day, 08:17.623 --> 08:20.953 that's a little ahistorical, but so be it; 08:20.949 --> 08:23.509 that's probably a publisher's title more than an author's 08:23.513 --> 08:26.663 title. But April 14,1873 is in some 08:26.655 --> 08:32.695 ways one of those days we could call in American history a day 08:32.701 --> 08:35.731 of infamy. The Supreme Court that day-- at 08:35.734 --> 08:38.774 least it's the date of the decision, even though it was 08:38.773 --> 08:41.253 Easter Sunday-- handed down its decision, 08:41.250 --> 08:44.270 five to four, in the Slaughterhouse Cases, 08:44.271 --> 08:48.181 so-called, a collection of five cases that came out of 08:48.178 --> 08:51.378 Louisiana, which was the court's first 08:51.375 --> 08:56.025 major ruling on the Civil War Amendments, on the meaning of 08:56.026 --> 09:00.526 the Thirteenth, the Fourteenth and in effect 09:00.534 --> 09:03.384 the Fifteenth Amendments. 09:03.379 --> 09:07.089 That day, the same day, Easter Sunday, 09:07.093 --> 09:11.613 in Colfax, Louisiana--a town, not very big, 09:11.610 --> 09:15.860 named for Schuyler Colfax, the Vice-President of the 09:15.856 --> 09:20.016 United States in the Grant Administration--in Grant 09:20.019 --> 09:24.269 Parish--renamed by the Republican regime for Ulysses 09:24.265 --> 09:29.175 Grant--the largest mass murder of Americans ever in American 09:29.178 --> 09:33.428 history occurred, in the political violence 09:33.434 --> 09:37.524 stemming from the divided election in Louisiana, 09:37.524 --> 09:39.964 back in the fall of 1872. 09:39.960 --> 09:42.820 Now 9/11 of course killed more Americans. 09:42.820 --> 09:45.990 We can get caught up in categories of what is domestic 09:45.994 --> 09:48.694 violence and foreign violence and so forth, 09:48.690 --> 09:53.400 but this is the largest mass murder of Americans in our 09:53.401 --> 09:56.281 history, so far as we can tell. 09:56.279 --> 09:59.889 That divided election produced in effect two competing 09:59.888 --> 10:03.698 governments in Louisiana: the Republican regime which did 10:03.700 --> 10:07.090 win the election, for all practical purposes, 10:07.085 --> 10:10.995 in spite of the tremendous political violence committed 10:10.996 --> 10:14.546 against particularly black voters in that fall '72 10:14.545 --> 10:17.985 election; but a so-called Fusion ticket 10:17.994 --> 10:22.534 of basically a kind of white supremacist coalition also 10:22.528 --> 10:27.228 claimed to be the legitimate government of Louisiana. 10:27.230 --> 10:32.000 And in this situation of essentially an ongoing vigilante 10:31.998 --> 10:35.318 war, throughout many of the parishes, 10:35.320 --> 10:41.720 counties, of Louisiana, a standoff took place in 10:41.715 --> 10:45.905 Colfax. I'll come back to that in a 10:45.909 --> 10:48.979 moment. But back to the Slaughterhouse 10:48.975 --> 10:51.155 Case that came down that day. 10:51.159 --> 10:54.249 It was, in the end, a testing of the Privileges and 10:54.246 --> 10:57.206 Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. 10:57.210 --> 11:01.110 In 1869 the City of New Orleans, under its Republican 11:01.110 --> 11:04.560 state government, created a corporation to move 11:04.559 --> 11:08.459 the slaughterhouse of New Orleans--there actually had 11:08.460 --> 11:12.960 never been a legitimate slaughterhouse in New Orleans. 11:12.960 --> 11:15.070 What the butchers of New Orleans would do, 11:15.067 --> 11:17.377 the white butchers of New Orleans would do, 11:17.379 --> 11:20.139 is they'd herd the hogs through the streets of New Orleans and 11:20.137 --> 11:22.937 basically they'd butcher the things wherever they wanted to, 11:22.940 --> 11:26.860 and they always threw all the--this gets ugly--all of the 11:26.860 --> 11:30.290 offal from the hogs into the Mississippi River, 11:30.289 --> 11:35.139 up river from the city, before the river reached the 11:35.137 --> 11:38.557 main water pipeline into the city. 11:38.559 --> 11:42.559 This had long been a problem, long been a series of 11:42.559 --> 11:46.719 complaints. And so this was an attempt at 11:46.722 --> 11:50.492 clean government and clean cities. 11:50.490 --> 11:54.570 The city, and the state backing it up, created a corporation 11:54.570 --> 11:57.060 that created a new slaughterhouse. 11:57.059 --> 12:00.399 They moved it across the Mississippi River and downstream 12:00.401 --> 12:02.551 from the city, for health reasons. 12:02.549 --> 12:08.539 They put in a state-appointed inspector, and the white 12:08.544 --> 12:12.734 butchers of New Orleans were angry. 12:12.730 --> 12:16.200 Some butchers and some critics charged this was a monopoly and 12:16.196 --> 12:17.386 an unfair practice. 12:17.389 --> 12:21.829 Twenty-five butchers brought suit, with support from the 12:21.828 --> 12:25.458 reviving Democratic Party-- white butchers. 12:25.460 --> 12:30.050 The lower courts in this particular suit found in favor 12:30.046 --> 12:32.166 of the new corporation. 12:32.169 --> 12:34.359 It was appealed to the U.S. 12:34.362 --> 12:38.152 Supreme Court. It got on the docket in '72. 12:38.150 --> 12:43.050 It was decided April 14,1873. 12:43.050 --> 12:46.300 It was a five-to-four decision. 12:46.299 --> 12:49.779 Seemingly on the surface, when you read it-- it's like 12:49.780 --> 12:53.130 many court decisions, it's a bit boring at first; 12:53.129 --> 12:55.569 five cases from butchers and so on and so on, 12:55.570 --> 12:58.010 and you wonder what the hell's this about? 12:58.009 --> 13:01.879 Then you keep reading and you realize it became a fundamental 13:01.880 --> 13:04.210 decision. Justice Samuel Miller, 13:04.210 --> 13:07.670 for the majority, argued that the Thirteenth and 13:07.673 --> 13:11.653 Fourteenth Amendments were intended-- this was the good 13:11.652 --> 13:15.932 part of the decision--to end slavery and advance the rights 13:15.925 --> 13:19.755 of the freedmen. But he made a sharp--in other 13:19.762 --> 13:24.492 words, not to protect a bunch of white butchers in New Orleans. 13:24.490 --> 13:27.050 And by the way, the lead lawyer, 13:27.048 --> 13:30.758 for the butchers, in the Slaughterhouse Cases, 13:30.763 --> 13:33.903 was none other than a man named John A. 13:33.899 --> 13:38.269 Campbell, a Georgia-born, former member of the Supreme 13:38.274 --> 13:41.664 Court. He had been part of the six-man 13:41.657 --> 13:44.887 majority in the Dred Scott decision of 1857; 13:44.889 --> 13:46.959 resigned his position in the U.S. 13:46.955 --> 13:50.115 Supreme Court in 1861 to go home and fight for the 13:50.117 --> 13:51.947 Confederacy. He didn't fight on the 13:51.954 --> 13:54.244 battlefield; he became Assistant Secretary 13:54.237 --> 13:57.787 of State in the Confederacy and served in that position, 13:57.789 --> 14:01.889 and other high-ranking official positions, in the Confederate 14:01.894 --> 14:05.114 national government throughout the Civil War. 14:05.110 --> 14:08.250 And when the war was over he was one of those high-ranking 14:08.249 --> 14:10.779 Confederate officials denied the right to vote, 14:10.782 --> 14:12.932 disfranchised for up to four years. 14:12.929 --> 14:17.309 He was part of the final set of amnesty and pardons that Andrew 14:17.313 --> 14:21.413 Johnson enacted just before leaving office in the spring of 14:21.414 --> 14:23.734 '69. And Campbell had made it his 14:23.729 --> 14:26.289 business, as a Redeemer now, in the South, 14:26.291 --> 14:29.541 to thwart and fight Reconstruction at every turn. 14:29.540 --> 14:31.760 He hated black suffrage. 14:31.760 --> 14:34.390 He hated black people. 14:34.389 --> 14:36.519 He was a virulent white supremacist. 14:36.519 --> 14:41.199 He took this case on because he wanted to crush Reconstruction. 14:41.200 --> 14:43.590 He even argued, by the way, in the 14:43.587 --> 14:47.857 Slaughterhouse Cases-- which Miller turned right back on his 14:47.856 --> 14:51.906 head--he even argued that the rights of the butchers were 14:51.907 --> 14:55.667 being violated under the Thirteenth Amendment. 14:55.669 --> 14:58.959 He said that these butchers were now being forced into a 14:58.957 --> 15:02.477 form of involuntary servitude because they had to take their 15:02.483 --> 15:06.133 hogs across the Mississippi and slaughter then downriver. 15:06.129 --> 15:11.399 It was violating their right to make a proper livelihood by 15:11.396 --> 15:14.116 their own individual choice. 15:14.120 --> 15:16.630 And frankly, folks--I read this decision 15:16.626 --> 15:20.146 this morning; well I got through most of 15:20.150 --> 15:26.060 it--if you want to read the origins of our modern day uses, 15:26.059 --> 15:31.619 and some would say misuses, of civil rights language and 15:31.617 --> 15:37.007 legislation, in our own time, the ways in which some American 15:37.005 --> 15:39.765 politicians, lawyers, judges, etcetera, 15:39.769 --> 15:41.789 pundits, etcetera, etcetera, 15:41.794 --> 15:45.604 etcetera, have appropriated the language of the modern Civil 15:45.597 --> 15:49.587 Rights movement--especially the language of the "content of our 15:49.593 --> 15:52.883 character"--to sometimes some scurrilous ends, 15:52.879 --> 15:58.099 the roots of that are in John Campbell's arguments in the 15:58.100 --> 16:00.990 Slaughterhouse Cases in 1873. 16:00.990 --> 16:05.320 Miller threw the Thirteenth Amendment argument back at 16:05.315 --> 16:07.515 Thompson [ph?] and told him, 16:07.519 --> 16:11.109 in effect, to--well--stick it somewhere. 16:11.110 --> 16:13.890 Now, however, back to Miller's opinion, 16:13.888 --> 16:17.468 in a five-to-four case, the real importance of the 16:17.472 --> 16:21.932 Slaughterhouse Case is that even though Miller argued that the 16:21.932 --> 16:26.612 purpose of these amendments were to advance black freedom and the 16:26.613 --> 16:31.453 rights of the freedman, he nevertheless made a clear 16:31.445 --> 16:36.205 distinction between national and state citizenship. 16:36.210 --> 16:38.910 In these years we don't even think of--well, 16:38.914 --> 16:42.814 I don't think we think in terms today of our state citizen-- do 16:42.814 --> 16:45.904 you think of yourself as a citizen of the State of 16:45.896 --> 16:48.126 Virginia? Maybe you do, I don't know. 16:48.129 --> 16:50.789 Maybe today in Pennsylvania, where people are voting in 16:50.789 --> 16:53.099 droves, they're thinking of their citizenship as 16:53.104 --> 16:54.684 Pennsylvanian, I don't know. 16:54.679 --> 16:57.769 But we tend to think in terms of citizenship now, 16:57.772 --> 17:00.542 certainly in the early twenty-first century, 17:00.541 --> 17:02.411 as a national phenomenon. 17:02.409 --> 17:07.629 One has Portuguese or German or American or whatever, 17:07.628 --> 17:13.848 Brazilian, citizenship and in some countries dual and so on. 17:13.849 --> 17:16.099 Rarely do we think of ourselves as citizens of states. 17:16.099 --> 17:18.589 But they did in the nineteenth century. 17:18.589 --> 17:21.929 Now what Miller did in this decision though was a bit weird, 17:21.925 --> 17:24.435 in retrospect. He named various national 17:24.441 --> 17:27.341 privileges and immunities--that's the language 17:27.341 --> 17:30.241 of the Fourteenth Amendment--like entering the 17:30.241 --> 17:33.481 nation's ports, or protection out on the high 17:33.481 --> 17:36.381 seas, the ability to run for federal office, 17:36.375 --> 17:39.265 and to travel to the seat of government, 17:39.270 --> 17:43.040 and so on. But he never mentioned basic 17:43.041 --> 17:45.641 civil rights, access to public facilities, 17:45.635 --> 17:47.655 etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. 17:47.660 --> 17:50.380 He never mentioned the right to vote. 17:50.380 --> 17:58.820 He said all of those rights are only under the jurisdiction of 17:58.818 --> 18:04.488 the state, not the national government. 18:04.490 --> 18:07.700 In other words, traditional federalism, 18:07.704 --> 18:12.784 this separation of what states can control--like the right to 18:12.778 --> 18:16.128 vote; like what is a civil right; 18:16.130 --> 18:20.670 which civil rights; what kinds of equality are to 18:20.668 --> 18:26.158 be adjudicated in court--would be left to the states. 18:26.160 --> 18:30.590 Slaughterhouse set in motion then this federal retreat, 18:30.585 --> 18:35.415 at least in the courts--and the retreat is already happening 18:35.421 --> 18:39.111 elsewhere-- from Miller's own definition, 18:39.109 --> 18:43.739 ironically, of the meaning of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth 18:43.741 --> 18:47.451 Amendments. Back to Colfax, 18:47.454 --> 18:52.094 Louisiana, April 14,1873. 18:52.089 --> 18:57.419 I don't have time for all the gruesome details of this 18:57.423 --> 19:01.653 massacre, and I'll spare you most of it. 19:01.650 --> 19:06.340 But it is in some ways an American My Lai Massacre, 19:06.339 --> 19:11.499 a Katyn Forest Massacre--what the Soviets did in 1944 in 19:11.498 --> 19:14.558 Poland. One of these authors of this 19:14.556 --> 19:17.376 new book, I think a bit inappropriately, 19:17.380 --> 19:21.220 uses the term genocide, that it was a result of a wish 19:21.216 --> 19:25.726 for genocide. It is mass murder by any 19:25.733 --> 19:29.093 definition. What happened is that with 19:29.086 --> 19:33.116 these two competing governments in Louisiana--Democrat Fusion 19:33.118 --> 19:37.078 government and the Republican government--both would appoint 19:37.082 --> 19:39.302 sheriffs in the same parish. 19:39.299 --> 19:41.709 So there was the Republican sheriff, who was black, 19:41.713 --> 19:44.323 and there was the Democratic sheriff, who was white. 19:44.319 --> 19:48.559 Local officials of all kinds are being appointed. 19:48.559 --> 19:53.339 Well what happened is that the violence in the countryside got 19:53.341 --> 19:57.101 so bad, in Grant Parish, that the blacks in the area 19:57.098 --> 20:00.788 began leaving their cabins and leaving their small farms, 20:00.789 --> 20:04.419 and they came into Colfax, because Colfax had become a 20:04.419 --> 20:08.389 symbol of protection and safety for blacks in the great Red 20:08.390 --> 20:11.130 River District of Central Louisiana. 20:11.130 --> 20:15.100 By the way, the Red River Region of Central Louisiana was 20:15.104 --> 20:18.444 some of the richest soil in all of the South. 20:18.440 --> 20:22.820 It was a tremendous sugar and cotton plantation region. 20:22.819 --> 20:26.649 Several thousand acres of that Red River District, 20:26.649 --> 20:30.559 right around Colfax, was owned by a white landowner 20:30.557 --> 20:33.837 named Willie Calhoun, William Calhoun. 20:33.839 --> 20:37.669 He was the son of Meredith Calhoun, who had been a very, 20:37.665 --> 20:40.655 very proslavery, huge slaveholder before the 20:40.656 --> 20:42.796 Civil War. But his son Willie, 20:42.796 --> 20:46.596 who had been raised in part in Europe, because his parents kept 20:46.603 --> 20:50.593 living half the time in Paris, as a kid was badly, 20:50.586 --> 20:52.436 terribly injured. 20:52.440 --> 20:53.380 His back was broken. 20:53.380 --> 20:56.060 He spent his life as a hunchback. 20:56.059 --> 21:00.879 And God only knows how he came by his sympathies and his 21:00.883 --> 21:04.483 beliefs in the rights of former slaves, 21:04.480 --> 21:07.490 but he became a Unionist during the Civil War in an area 21:07.487 --> 21:10.657 where--it was not healthy to be a Unionist in the Red River 21:10.659 --> 21:13.339 District. And after the war was over, 21:13.339 --> 21:16.909 Willie Calhoun became an early-and-often scalawag, 21:16.913 --> 21:19.473 a Republican. And he, in effect, 21:19.472 --> 21:23.572 turned over much of his land, without even selling it, 21:23.572 --> 21:27.982 to the settlement of hundreds and hundreds of freedmen and 21:27.982 --> 21:32.472 their families. Willie Calhoun would spend the 21:32.470 --> 21:37.960 Colfax Massacre watching probably 150-odd blacks murdered 21:37.960 --> 21:42.270 in cold blood, as a kind of a prisoner on his 21:42.273 --> 21:45.203 front porch. But at any rate, 21:45.203 --> 21:50.103 blacks gathered in Colfax for weeks before the spring of '73, 21:50.099 --> 21:55.079 because it was--it had been, at least, the Calhoun Landing, 21:55.078 --> 21:58.628 as it was called, had been a place of safety. 21:58.630 --> 22:00.950 Blacks took over the courthouse in Colfax. 22:00.950 --> 22:02.430 They occupied it. 22:02.430 --> 22:04.890 They collected lots of weapons. 22:04.890 --> 22:08.260 They were ready. They built trenches all the way 22:08.256 --> 22:09.696 around the courthouse. 22:09.700 --> 22:12.320 They were ready for battle. 22:12.319 --> 22:17.399 And it is battle they got from a huge mob of disparate, 22:17.400 --> 22:20.980 paramilitary whites, many of whom were former 22:20.981 --> 22:23.821 Confederate soldiers, many of whom were former 22:23.817 --> 22:27.317 members of the Ku Klux Klan; some now called themselves 22:27.319 --> 22:30.419 Knights of the White Camellia--they went by all kinds 22:30.418 --> 22:31.728 of different names. 22:31.730 --> 22:35.410 And what happened on April 14^(th) was indeed, 22:35.407 --> 22:37.857 in effect, a pitched battle. 22:37.859 --> 22:44.069 The whites had a cannon, lots of weapons. 22:44.069 --> 22:47.389 Blacks couldn't hold them off, they fled into the courthouse. 22:47.390 --> 22:50.940 The whites captured a black man and forced him to take a torch 22:50.935 --> 22:53.545 and they said, "We'll kill you or you take the 22:53.551 --> 22:55.761 torch and light the roof on fire." 22:55.759 --> 22:59.369 He lit the roof on fire and the courthouse began to burn down, 22:59.374 --> 23:02.234 which, of course, smoked most of the blacks out 23:02.233 --> 23:05.103 of the courthouse, although a few stayed and were 23:05.103 --> 23:09.593 burned to death, hiding under the floorboards. 23:09.589 --> 23:14.379 And as they came out many of them were executed right around 23:14.377 --> 23:18.147 the door. Before the thing was over that 23:18.145 --> 23:23.505 night, the estimate runs from about eighty to possibly as 23:23.513 --> 23:28.113 high--we'll never really know--as 150 blacks were 23:28.114 --> 23:32.144 killed--most of them execution style; 23:32.140 --> 23:35.960 most of them with shots to the head, many of them shots to the 23:35.961 --> 23:39.031 back of their heads, and many of them, 23:39.030 --> 23:44.800 in the wake of being shot, having their bodies mutilated. 23:44.799 --> 23:48.649 The First Representatives of the Louisiana State Government, 23:48.649 --> 23:51.519 the Republican Louisiana State Government, 23:51.519 --> 23:55.839 arrived forty-eight hours after the massacre and recorded, 23:55.835 --> 24:00.275 one after another corpse, shot in the back of the head 24:00.278 --> 24:05.588 and then shot many more times, and then somebody's mutilated, 24:05.589 --> 24:09.169 and they kept this--this is this kind of gruesome need to 24:09.166 --> 24:11.526 describe you find in these reports. 24:11.529 --> 24:17.699 They also described many of the bodies being eaten by dogs and 24:17.699 --> 24:24.139 turkey vultures. Well, Colfax led to a national 24:24.137 --> 24:27.677 sensation. Harper's Weekly and 24:27.679 --> 24:31.589 Leslie's Weekly had illustrated articles about it 24:31.590 --> 24:34.860 within a week, the famous pictures of blacks 24:34.859 --> 24:37.629 carrying their dead home to bury them; 24:37.630 --> 24:41.420 quotations from women describing--a woman describing 24:41.421 --> 24:45.881 dragging her son away from the dogs who were eating his body, 24:45.882 --> 24:47.892 and so on and so forth. 24:47.890 --> 24:50.490 And it led to a national investigation, 24:50.494 --> 24:54.274 a federal investigation, led by the Republican appointed 24:54.265 --> 24:56.175 U.S. Attorney in New Orleans, 24:56.184 --> 25:00.644 whose name was James Beckwith, a northern-born New England, 25:00.640 --> 25:06.210 old abolitionist fellow with a good deal of zeal who heroically 25:06.208 --> 25:10.338 tried to bring indictments and prosecutions. 25:10.339 --> 25:14.609 There were indeed many indictments but only three 25:14.609 --> 25:17.899 convictions, in the wake of Colfax. 25:17.900 --> 25:24.800 It took over two years and it led to the second great Supreme 25:24.802 --> 25:30.212 Court case that turned around Reconstruction. 25:30.210 --> 25:36.320 That case, first argued in Louisiana, was for the three men 25:36.320 --> 25:40.850 convicted of leading the Colfax Massacre. 25:40.849 --> 25:44.629 One of the names was a man named William Cruikshank, 25:44.629 --> 25:48.219 c-r-u-i-k-s-h-a-n-k; I don't think I put it on the 25:48.223 --> 25:49.513 outline, or did I? 25:49.510 --> 25:52.950 I guess I didn't, sorry. 25:52.950 --> 25:57.230 In the United States versus Cruikshank, the U.S. 25:57.233 --> 26:02.063 Supreme Court took up the case of these convictions in 26:02.064 --> 26:05.704 Louisiana. The court by this time, 26:05.698 --> 26:10.308 early 1876 when the Cruikshank case came down, 26:10.311 --> 26:13.081 had a new chief justice. 26:13.079 --> 26:16.169 His name was Morrison Remick Waite, w-a-i-t-e, 26:16.166 --> 26:20.276 who'd been appointed by Grant in 1874 to replace the recently 26:20.281 --> 26:21.521 deceased Salmon P. 26:21.516 --> 26:25.146 Chase, who had been appointed Chief Justice by Abraham 26:25.151 --> 26:28.131 Lincoln. The court by 1876 was seven 26:28.130 --> 26:30.370 Republicans and two Democrats. 26:30.369 --> 26:33.939 Most of them now had been appointed by Lincoln or Grant. 26:33.940 --> 26:37.350 This was a thoroughly Republican Party Supreme Court. 26:37.350 --> 26:42.490 26:42.490 --> 26:46.270 Waite by the way--we've been through many Supreme Court 26:46.273 --> 26:49.783 appointments in our recent lifetime and we know how 26:49.776 --> 26:53.556 political these things can get--Waite was Grant's fifth 26:53.559 --> 26:56.679 choice. The first two people he asked 26:56.676 --> 26:59.106 turned him down. I don't want to be on the 26:59.106 --> 27:00.966 Supreme Court, there's no political future 27:00.970 --> 27:02.880 there. Supreme Court justices in these 27:02.878 --> 27:05.778 years often ran for President while they were on the court, 27:05.779 --> 27:10.209 and it's--they don't do that, at least they don't do that 27:10.214 --> 27:11.944 now. The next two people he 27:11.939 --> 27:15.229 appointed, or he wanted to appoint, were turned down by the 27:15.232 --> 27:16.792 Senate. Waite was his fifth choice. 27:16.790 --> 27:18.310 Nobody had ever heard of him. 27:18.309 --> 27:22.979 He was known in Ohio, but as one of his own Supreme 27:22.980 --> 27:27.000 Court colleagues called him, said Waite was, 27:26.996 --> 27:32.036 quote, "at the front rank of second rank lawyers." 27:32.039 --> 27:36.649 And maybe it proved the old adage-- apologies to anyone from 27:36.652 --> 27:38.712 Ohio; you know the old saying; 27:38.710 --> 27:44.720 Ohio's had more presidents I think even than Virginia-- some 27:44.717 --> 27:48.587 are born great, some achieve greatness, 27:48.587 --> 27:51.537 some just come from Ohio. 27:51.539 --> 27:56.999 Morrison Waite will write the opinion, in a nine-to-nothing 27:57.001 --> 28:02.181 decision, unanimous decision, in the Cruikshank case. 28:02.180 --> 28:04.580 This was a test, this case now, 28:04.583 --> 28:08.353 of really the Enforcement Act passed in 1870, 28:08.349 --> 28:12.939 the Enforcement Act as part of the Ku Klux Klan Acts, 28:12.941 --> 28:17.711 authorizing the federal government to enforce the right 28:17.710 --> 28:21.390 to vote, with military action if 28:21.391 --> 28:24.241 necessary, in the South. 28:24.240 --> 28:26.710 This was a case now testing that; 28:26.710 --> 28:29.560 also, of course, testing the Fourteenth and 28:29.559 --> 28:31.119 Fifteenth Amendments. 28:31.119 --> 28:35.069 The court decision in Cruikshank found the 28:35.066 --> 28:38.046 indictments, it said, faulty. 28:38.049 --> 28:41.599 It overturned two of the three convictions. 28:41.599 --> 28:46.569 It ruled that those immortal phrases of 'due process' and 28:46.567 --> 28:50.907 'equal protection,' those two great clauses in part 28:50.906 --> 28:55.136 one of the Fourteenth Amendment, applied, they said, 28:55.140 --> 29:01.070 only to state actions, and not to the actions of 29:01.065 --> 29:06.505 individuals. If a man murders another man in 29:06.513 --> 29:12.343 Colfax, Louisiana, in a political way or any other 29:12.335 --> 29:15.895 way, that's a state matter. 29:15.900 --> 29:19.900 Even if it's around voting it's a state matter, 29:19.900 --> 29:23.550 not a federal matter; can't be adjudicated in the 29:23.545 --> 29:26.635 federal court. Federal government does not 29:26.642 --> 29:30.122 have the power to enforce the right to vote, 29:30.117 --> 29:33.347 the right to civil rights, and so on. 29:33.349 --> 29:36.879 The Cruikshank case--the implications of the Cruikshank 29:36.881 --> 29:39.041 case--immediately were obvious. 29:39.039 --> 29:42.119 It meant, number one, that mass murder went 29:42.123 --> 29:44.623 unpunished in the United States. 29:44.619 --> 29:49.019 Two, it meant that blacks increasingly now would be at the 29:49.022 --> 29:52.192 mercy of now hostile state governments. 29:52.190 --> 29:55.900 Back when Justice Miller wrote that decision in Slaughterhouse, 29:55.904 --> 29:58.724 there were still a lot of Republican Regimes. 29:58.720 --> 30:02.920 And he claimed to his dying day he was leaving adjudication to 30:02.917 --> 30:06.287 states, under sympathetic Republic governments. 30:06.289 --> 30:10.649 Yeah, but Justice Miller, what if a government's no 30:10.651 --> 30:15.101 longer sympathetic, what if it's run by Klansmen? 30:15.099 --> 30:18.339 And three, it opened up--Cruikshank now opens up--as 30:18.343 --> 30:22.643 a federal court decision, all manner of discriminatory 30:22.642 --> 30:27.992 laws passed by what will be Democratic Redeemer governments 30:27.991 --> 30:30.391 in the Southern states. 30:30.390 --> 30:33.970 Why was there a nine-to-nothing decision in 1876 on this, 30:33.967 --> 30:37.547 with seven of the justices appointed by Lincoln and Grant 30:37.545 --> 30:40.475 and so on? Well, one, you have to realize 30:40.477 --> 30:43.187 that by '75 and '76, when these guys were 30:43.192 --> 30:47.202 adjudicating this decision, there was a tremendous amount 30:47.202 --> 30:50.332 of just flat-out fatigue with Reconstruction. 30:50.329 --> 30:54.289 And I've been to all--I've been to a lot of your sections now 30:54.293 --> 30:58.263 and I've heard you say the same thing, and I'm not chastising 30:58.257 --> 31:01.657 you, I'm not. But sometimes we read back into 31:01.655 --> 31:05.395 the past even our own fatigue with certain issues. 31:05.400 --> 31:07.630 They were sort of fed-up with Reconstruction in the North. 31:07.630 --> 31:14.750 Well yeah, they were, but look at the consequences. 31:14.750 --> 31:18.860 It's clear, even in their own writings, that many of the 31:18.856 --> 31:23.406 justices just wanted to get rid of Reconstruction and leave it 31:23.410 --> 31:25.480 to the South. It signaled now, 31:25.480 --> 31:28.180 most importantly--and Foner makes this point in the one 31:28.180 --> 31:31.380 little paragraph he gives you on the Cruikshank case--it signaled 31:31.380 --> 31:33.430 now that the federal government was, 31:33.430 --> 31:36.890 in effect, exiting Reconstruction; 31:36.890 --> 31:39.490 certainly the Supreme Court was. 31:39.490 --> 31:45.020 And as Foner says, terror was given a green light 31:45.024 --> 31:52.404 anywhere that a state government was unwilling to enforce the law 31:52.403 --> 31:54.943 or protect people. 31:54.940 --> 31:58.710 Now, why was Radicalism waning in the 1870s, 31:58.706 --> 32:02.206 or even at the beginning of the 1870s? 32:02.210 --> 32:05.320 What is it about the Grant years, especially the second 32:05.323 --> 32:08.283 Grant Administration, that leads--that just 32:08.283 --> 32:12.643 practically paves these roads to a Southern redemption, 32:12.640 --> 32:15.830 a Southern counter-revolution? 32:15.829 --> 32:18.799 Well there are many factors, and let me kind of run through 32:18.800 --> 32:21.310 them and then focus especially on the scandals, 32:21.309 --> 32:24.289 for a moment, and then on this larger 32:24.287 --> 32:28.227 question of violence; in case you haven't heard 32:28.231 --> 32:30.111 enough about violence. 32:30.109 --> 32:36.049 First of all there's the Panic of 1873, which hit in the spring 32:36.051 --> 32:39.101 of 1873. A major economic depression had 32:39.101 --> 32:43.151 hit the country--eventually the entire country--that led to a 32:43.149 --> 32:46.049 great deal of labor strife and violence. 32:46.049 --> 32:49.459 It meant in the wake of the--well, in the midst of the 32:49.461 --> 32:51.071 Panic of '73, into '74, 32:51.069 --> 32:55.309 '75, that the issues now that politicians were most concerned 32:55.313 --> 32:58.923 about, and that voters were most concerned about, 32:58.920 --> 33:02.540 particularly in the North, were things like currency, 33:02.539 --> 33:05.399 tariffs, unemployment, railroad subsidies, 33:05.397 --> 33:08.017 labor strife, whether a union had the right 33:08.022 --> 33:10.962 to strike here or the right to strike there. 33:10.960 --> 33:13.350 And across the great Midwest, among farmers, 33:13.345 --> 33:15.725 the biggest issue was the price of wheat, 33:15.730 --> 33:21.610 which dropped from two dollars a barrel to fifty cents in a 33:21.606 --> 33:25.246 year and a half. Wages for manufacturing 33:25.252 --> 33:29.292 laborers in the United States, in a year and a half, 33:29.294 --> 33:33.024 dropped by fifty percent across the country; 33:33.019 --> 33:36.629 that's for those who kept their jobs. 33:36.630 --> 33:43.880 The Panic of 1873 shifted people's minds, 33:43.877 --> 33:47.317 to say the least. 33:47.319 --> 33:51.799 Then there's the factor of--the nature of Grant's presidency; 33:51.799 --> 33:56.139 the way in which Grant himself even defined the presidency. 33:56.140 --> 33:59.050 Grant, you'll remember, was a rather reluctant 33:59.051 --> 34:00.541 politician, at first. 34:00.539 --> 34:04.399 He actually got a little better at it than his historical 34:04.404 --> 34:07.514 reputation has sometimes led us to believe. 34:07.510 --> 34:09.550 Grant could be very political. 34:09.550 --> 34:12.970 Although he did have this idea that the presidency ought to 34:12.970 --> 34:15.270 be--especially in these crisis years, 34:15.269 --> 34:18.939 with the tremendous bitterness, bloody shirt tensions after the 34:18.939 --> 34:20.499 Civil War; and after all, 34:20.504 --> 34:23.434 he's the general that won the war and obliterated 34:23.433 --> 34:27.093 Virginia--that the president ought to be now just basically a 34:27.094 --> 34:30.364 caretaker, ought to have as few opinions 34:30.364 --> 34:34.704 as possible; a caretaker presidency, 34:34.703 --> 34:39.703 not so much a leader as a unifier. 34:39.699 --> 34:43.299 Now his hands-off approach to so many things, 34:43.299 --> 34:47.139 of course, is what, in part, led to the scandals 34:47.144 --> 34:50.994 that have so long been associated with him, 34:50.989 --> 34:53.149 or at least with his administration. 34:53.150 --> 34:57.580 I would argue that Grant has gotten, to some extent, 34:57.583 --> 35:00.543 a bad rap, from some historians, 35:00.539 --> 35:03.799 although if you look at any of those lists that come out every 35:03.800 --> 35:06.260 year, when they survey historians--the greatest 35:06.258 --> 35:08.968 presidents, the worst presidents--Lincoln's 35:08.972 --> 35:11.442 always at the top and then you get FDR; 35:11.440 --> 35:16.320 now Reagan is always in the top three, for reasons I don't even 35:16.322 --> 35:18.732 want to discuss. [Laughter] 35:18.734 --> 35:22.814 Well, a lot of airports are named for him, 35:22.812 --> 35:25.002 I guess that's why. 35:25.000 --> 35:29.860 At any rate, enough on that. 35:29.860 --> 35:31.830 Grant has always been down near the bottom. 35:31.830 --> 35:34.220 I can't resist this. 35:34.219 --> 35:37.389 The great American cynic of the nineteenth century, 35:37.394 --> 35:41.144 one of our greatest historians and one of our most beautiful 35:41.140 --> 35:43.870 writers--but what a cynic--Henry Adams, 35:43.869 --> 35:47.359 son of Charles Francis Adams, grandson of Quincy, 35:47.361 --> 35:49.181 great-grandson of John. 35:49.179 --> 35:55.179 This was his description of Grant, and he was living the 35:55.179 --> 36:01.069 Grant Administration: "Grant had no right to exist." 36:01.070 --> 36:04.540 [Laughter] "He should've been extinct for 36:04.542 --> 36:07.212 ages. That 2000 years after Alexander 36:07.212 --> 36:10.812 the Great and Julius Caesar, a man like Grant should be 36:10.805 --> 36:14.855 called and should actually and truly be the highest product of 36:14.864 --> 36:20.164 the most advanced evolution, made evolution ludicrous. 36:20.159 --> 36:25.069 The progress of evolution, from President Washington to 36:25.066 --> 36:29.066 President Grant, was alone evidence enough to 36:29.065 --> 36:34.185 upset Darwin. Grant should've lived in a cave 36:34.194 --> 36:38.534 and worn skins." Oh. 36:38.530 --> 36:42.480 [Laughter] That's cold, 36:42.477 --> 36:46.937 and unfair. But under his leadership a 36:46.938 --> 36:51.768 whole series of four or five different scandals that sort of 36:51.770 --> 36:56.360 set the standard [laughs] for scandal to come in American 36:56.355 --> 36:58.705 history; although we've had some much 36:58.712 --> 37:00.422 worse ones since than some of these. 37:00.420 --> 37:02.950 Most of them were of course financial. 37:02.949 --> 37:06.959 There's almost no sex in the Grant scandal years, 37:06.963 --> 37:08.973 so far as we can tell. 37:08.970 --> 37:11.630 The first was the Gold Scandal. 37:11.630 --> 37:16.150 This was an attempt to corner the gold market by one Jay Gould 37:16.150 --> 37:18.820 and James Fisk. These were Wall Street guys in 37:18.820 --> 37:20.540 New York. This is in 1869, 37:20.535 --> 37:22.945 right after Grant took office. 37:22.949 --> 37:25.579 They did indeed corner the market on gold. 37:25.579 --> 37:29.219 They tried to buy up all the gold in New York, 37:29.215 --> 37:34.055 and then they planned to force bankers and business people to 37:34.061 --> 37:38.341 buy the gold from them at inflated prices--it's an old 37:38.342 --> 37:42.362 cornering trick. They made eleven million 37:42.355 --> 37:48.125 dollars in three weeks doing this, in the nineteenth century. 37:48.130 --> 37:54.230 They were eventually selling that gold at $163.50 per ounce. 37:54.230 --> 37:57.000 And the only way to break their corner was--suddenly, 37:56.999 --> 37:59.499 because it happened so fast--was for the Federal 37:59.503 --> 38:02.063 Government to begin selling all of its gold, 38:02.059 --> 38:05.919 put it on the market, get the prices down. 38:05.920 --> 38:11.500 Grant's brother-in-law--never appoint your brother-in-law to 38:11.496 --> 38:16.786 anything--Abel Corbin was a sort of personal emissary. 38:16.789 --> 38:21.019 He assured and promised the plotters, Gould and Fisk, 38:21.021 --> 38:25.581 that he had influence on Grant and that Grant would never 38:25.579 --> 38:29.159 permit the government's gold to be sold. 38:29.159 --> 38:33.629 But he was wrong and Grant did allow it to be sold. 38:33.630 --> 38:38.890 And then Grant's treasury secretary, George Boutwell, 38:38.892 --> 38:42.512 got involved. The scandal finally broke open 38:42.507 --> 38:45.507 in the press, and though nothing ever really 38:45.514 --> 38:48.664 happened to Gould or Fisk--setting in motion a 38:48.661 --> 38:52.791 history of who gets caught and who doesn't get caught in the 38:52.787 --> 38:56.907 Wall Street world--it was the first scandal of its kind that 38:56.913 --> 39:00.833 began to lead to cries of civil service reform, 39:00.829 --> 39:06.919 which became a big rallying cry in the 1870s. 39:06.920 --> 39:08.620 Then there was the Whiskey Ring. 39:08.619 --> 39:16.199 Man, this was old-fashioned, just unadulterated fraud. 39:16.200 --> 39:18.330 This began in the early 1870s. 39:18.330 --> 39:20.660 It first started in St. Louis. 39:20.659 --> 39:24.099 It was really a cartel, what we in modern times would 39:24.101 --> 39:26.221 call the creation of a cartel. 39:26.219 --> 39:29.279 These were whiskey distillers, all over the country, 39:29.280 --> 39:31.440 who banded together to cheat the U.S. 39:31.440 --> 39:36.510 Government out of excise taxes; the luxury tax on whiskey. 39:36.510 --> 39:40.430 The way that they did it is many distillers were forced to 39:40.428 --> 39:44.278 join this ring of people around the country or have their 39:44.277 --> 39:48.237 businesses ruined; join or we'll run you out of 39:48.243 --> 39:50.493 business. The Whiskey Ring had branch 39:50.490 --> 39:53.380 offices all over the country, in cities like Milwaukee and 39:53.382 --> 39:54.522 Peoria, New Orleans, 39:54.520 --> 39:56.310 Chicago, Cincinnati, in Washington, 39:56.307 --> 39:57.987 and many other cities, North, 39:57.990 --> 40:00.260 South, West, you name it. 40:00.260 --> 40:02.870 And then they started bribing the Treasury Department, 40:02.866 --> 40:05.616 which of course is where the excise taxes would go to. 40:05.619 --> 40:10.039 Many officials in the Treasury Department were soon on the 40:10.036 --> 40:14.446 payroll of the Whiskey Ring, especially the chief clerk of 40:14.453 --> 40:16.623 the U.S. Treasury Department, 40:16.622 --> 40:19.182 the man who kept the books. 40:19.179 --> 40:22.809 One General Orville Babcock, the president's private 40:22.808 --> 40:26.178 secretary, was implicated; more than implicated, 40:26.181 --> 40:29.761 he was involved. He was charged eventually, 40:29.764 --> 40:31.664 although acquitted. 40:31.659 --> 40:34.419 Grant entered a deposition on his behalf and his good 40:34.424 --> 40:37.144 character and so on, in court--which he never should 40:37.135 --> 40:39.075 have done. He didn't really look at the 40:39.083 --> 40:40.763 facts, he didn't look at the evidence. 40:40.760 --> 40:45.000 The point of all this one is that millions and millions of 40:45.002 --> 40:48.502 dollars in liquor revenues were lost to the U.S. 40:48.499 --> 40:52.819 Government, from about 1870 to 1875, and most of that money 40:52.816 --> 40:57.496 went into the pockets of whiskey distillers and a lot of it went 40:57.504 --> 41:01.754 into the pockets of Treasury Department officials who were 41:01.746 --> 41:05.836 themselves supposed to be collecting the tax. 41:05.840 --> 41:11.170 The estimate is that between forty and fifty million dollars 41:11.173 --> 41:14.883 was grafted in this particular scandal. 41:14.880 --> 41:17.150 The scandal broke in 1875. 41:17.150 --> 41:21.200 There were about 150 people indicted in the liquor business, 41:21.201 --> 41:24.431 about eighty-five people indicted in the federal 41:24.429 --> 41:28.099 government. There were 110 convictions, 41:28.101 --> 41:33.191 although nobody served terribly long in any prison. 41:33.190 --> 41:36.100 And thirdly, there's this thing called 41:38.070 --> 41:43.180 This was the company that was first chartered in 1859 as part 41:43.175 --> 41:47.765 of--it was the finance company for the Pennsylvania, 41:47.769 --> 41:51.109 it was called the Pennsylvania Fiscal Agency originally, 41:51.113 --> 41:54.763 it was the finance company for the Union Pacific Railroad, 41:54.760 --> 41:58.870 that got the greatest contract in American history to build the 41:58.865 --> 42:00.715 Transcontinental Railroad. 42:00.719 --> 42:04.409 The Union Pacific had a charter from the federal government to 42:04.406 --> 42:07.966 build this great railroad to the Pacific, or possibly two or 42:07.972 --> 42:10.922 three of them. For each mile of track built 42:10.923 --> 42:15.053 the Union Pacific was to receive ten sections of public land, 42:15.050 --> 42:20.010 and from 16,000 to 48,000 dollars, depending on how 42:20.011 --> 42:23.981 difficult the terrain was to build on. 42:23.980 --> 42:28.100 The Union Pacific arranged the construction contracts with its 42:31.469 --> 42:35.889 so that all government money would get spent. 42:35.889 --> 42:37.869 You know the old routine, if you get a grant, 42:37.871 --> 42:40.661 make sure you spend it because they won't give you as much next 42:42.689 --> 42:46.349 and therefore Union Pacific, made enormous profits. 42:49.688 --> 42:54.088 skyrocketed, and to keep the federal government in line and 42:54.090 --> 42:59.290 to let this continue to go on, many congressmen--we'll never 42:59.292 --> 43:04.452 know exactly how many--were on the take, were simply being 43:04.445 --> 43:08.695 bribed, in old-fashioned handfuls of 43:08.699 --> 43:12.049 cash, by the Union Pacific. 43:12.050 --> 43:15.810 This scandal too broke in 1873. 43:15.809 --> 43:18.509 All kinds of people were accused, including 43:18.514 --> 43:20.644 Vice-President Schuyler Colfax. 43:20.639 --> 43:25.949 Congress reprimanded one government railroad agent and 43:25.950 --> 43:30.660 two congressmen, and then just left it alone. 43:30.659 --> 43:34.049 So far as I know, no one's ever really put a 43:34.048 --> 43:38.698 price tag on the graft committed by the Union Pacific in the 43:41.219 --> 43:48.329 This kind of spoils-men financial corruption became 43:48.327 --> 43:54.477 rampant in the Grant years, and again a huge political 43:54.481 --> 43:58.001 distraction away from the issues of the South, 43:57.996 --> 44:04.066 the issues of the freedmen, the issues of Reconstruction. 44:04.070 --> 44:09.360 The other major path to Southern redemption, 44:09.360 --> 44:15.510 the success of the white Southern Democratic Party, 44:15.511 --> 44:20.311 was of course the uses of violence. 44:20.309 --> 44:24.099 But before I give you a little more litany on the level of Klan 44:24.100 --> 44:27.770 terrorism, think with me for just a moment what those Radical 44:27.768 --> 44:31.558 Republicans originally--almost none of whom are really in power 44:31.558 --> 44:34.308 anymore: Thaddeus Stevens died in 1869; 44:34.310 --> 44:38.730 Charles Sumner dies in 1874; Benjamin Wade is long gone, 44:38.730 --> 44:40.740 as a senator from Ohio. 44:40.739 --> 44:43.459 The old leadership of the Radicals is really no longer 44:43.455 --> 44:45.755 there by 1874, when the Democrats are going to 44:45.761 --> 44:48.731 throw the Republicans out of the leadership of the Congress 44:48.733 --> 44:51.853 anyway. But think with me for just a 44:51.854 --> 44:56.414 moment, back to what Foner called the Radicals' civic 44:56.413 --> 45:00.053 vision. That civic vision again was 45:00.045 --> 45:05.245 rooted in Free Soilism, Unionism, winning the war, 45:05.250 --> 45:07.980 and ending slavery, emancipation, 45:07.982 --> 45:12.852 and then to at least the beginnings of racial equality. 45:12.849 --> 45:15.739 You cannot mistake that they believed in at least the 45:15.738 --> 45:18.568 beginnings of that in the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and 45:18.571 --> 45:19.961 Fifteenth Amendments. 45:19.960 --> 45:25.560 But think for a moment, in the nineteenth century how 45:25.564 --> 45:31.604 would most Americans think about the idea of equality? 45:31.599 --> 45:35.849 I would argue that in our history, this nation in the 45:35.851 --> 45:40.761 modern world that probably tried to do more about the idea of 45:40.757 --> 45:44.107 equality than perhaps any place else, 45:44.110 --> 45:48.330 has gone through three definitions of equality. 45:48.329 --> 45:53.659 The first we might simply call equality in the eyes of God, 45:53.661 --> 45:55.501 or natural rights. 45:55.500 --> 45:58.690 The old Enlightenment--it's not just from the Enlightenment, 45:58.686 --> 46:02.706 it's in the Epistles of Paul, it's ancient in some ways--but 46:02.707 --> 46:07.557 the idea that somehow you're born equal before God or nature, 46:07.559 --> 46:10.889 that you have a natural capacity that's equal. 46:10.889 --> 46:13.019 It doesn't say anything about human affairs. 46:13.019 --> 46:17.799 It doesn't say anything about government or law. 46:17.800 --> 46:23.960 The second kind of equality that came into history is 46:23.962 --> 46:26.572 equality before law. 46:26.570 --> 46:30.060 That was never codified, never spoken, 46:30.063 --> 46:38.073 until the Fourteenth Amendment; the equal protection of the law. 46:38.070 --> 46:40.160 That's where it begins. 46:40.159 --> 46:43.749 If there's a third kind of equality in our history it's 46:43.751 --> 46:47.261 probably what we came to call, in the twentieth century, 46:47.259 --> 46:50.569 and especially in the Civil Rights Revolution and its wake, 46:50.570 --> 46:55.390 an equality of opportunity. 46:55.389 --> 47:00.099 In the nineteenth century trust--they never got to that 47:00.095 --> 47:04.445 one, and they didn't get terribly far with equality 47:04.452 --> 47:07.672 before law. The Radical Republicans' ideas 47:07.667 --> 47:11.097 were up against--and here you can just give up and say, 47:11.101 --> 47:13.901 "well you see, what--they tried to go too far 47:13.899 --> 47:16.499 too fast; they were ahead of their times; 47:16.500 --> 47:19.450 gee whiz, Reconstruction failed, maybe it should've 47:19.453 --> 47:22.233 failed, can't do anything about it, so be it; 47:22.230 --> 47:25.620 well the lights went out for 75 or 80 years but that's-- you 47:25.619 --> 47:28.319 know, some things are inevitable in history." 47:28.320 --> 47:36.960 If you're comfortable with that, fine. 47:36.960 --> 47:41.320 But the Radical Republican ideology at least set in motion 47:41.319 --> 47:44.259 a tradition. The problem was they got 47:44.261 --> 47:49.101 cornered themselves by their own language, because the language 47:49.095 --> 47:53.925 they got cornered by was the language of guaranteed rights. 47:53.929 --> 48:00.089 If you guaranteed somebody's beginnings of equality in law, 48:00.091 --> 48:02.961 what else is there to do? 48:02.960 --> 48:06.310 If you and I are equal before the law, at least the law says 48:06.308 --> 48:09.598 we're equal before the law, what else can government do? 48:09.599 --> 48:13.239 But the Radical Republicans in Reconstruction launched that 48:13.244 --> 48:16.264 question into our history, as no one ever had. 48:16.260 --> 48:19.880 What do governments owe people and what do people owe 48:19.884 --> 48:21.934 governments? The trouble, 48:21.925 --> 48:26.005 of course, was that on-the-ground in the South, 48:26.007 --> 48:29.377 the Klan, and all of its imitators, 48:29.380 --> 48:38.140 were winning Reconstruction by terror, by political violence, 48:38.141 --> 48:42.631 by intimidation. Now you've read about the Klan. 48:42.630 --> 48:45.830 I've given you statistics on Klan violence, 48:45.825 --> 48:48.635 especially in 1868 up through 1871. 48:48.639 --> 48:51.559 But it was the first Grant Administration--and we've got to 48:51.559 --> 48:54.739 give Grant credit for this, and Henry Adams should've at 48:54.741 --> 48:57.751 least thought of this when he wrote that God-awful 48:57.753 --> 49:00.523 passage--the Grant Administration did act, 49:00.519 --> 49:07.049 in 1870 and '71, against the Klan. 49:07.050 --> 49:10.610 May 31,1870, it passed the so-called Force 49:10.612 --> 49:13.742 Act, or the First Enforcement Act. 49:13.739 --> 49:16.879 It made it a federal offence to interfere with any person's 49:16.875 --> 49:20.005 right to vote and made it punishable in a federal court. 49:20.010 --> 49:24.170 That's the very law the Cruikshank case is going to 49:24.169 --> 49:27.329 come, along six years later and say, 49:27.329 --> 49:31.569 "no, the federal government can't enforce that, 49:31.571 --> 49:33.601 only the state can." 49:33.599 --> 49:37.919 It's one of those moments you want to go back into history and 49:37.915 --> 49:40.955 just grab some people by the collar and say, 49:40.958 --> 49:43.928 "No, no, no, no, think one more time." 49:43.930 --> 49:46.350 But, of course we can't do that. 49:46.349 --> 49:48.849 February 28,1871, the Second Force Act, 49:48.845 --> 49:52.125 provided a machinery for the federal supervision of 49:52.127 --> 49:54.817 registration and voting in the South. 49:54.820 --> 49:57.060 It had at least tried. 49:57.059 --> 50:01.909 And finally they passed what was called the Ku Klux Klan Act; 50:01.910 --> 50:07.870 April 20,1871. It authorized the President to 50:07.871 --> 50:12.711 use the Army and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus wherever 50:12.714 --> 50:16.054 he deemed necessary, if there was a state of 50:16.053 --> 50:19.153 insurrection--which there was in South Carolina, 50:19.147 --> 50:20.987 in about twelve counties. 50:20.989 --> 50:24.079 Move the Army in, if necessary, 50:24.083 --> 50:29.243 to protect the safety and security of elections. 50:29.239 --> 50:36.109 Now, under this authority of these Enforcement Acts and the 50:36.110 --> 50:40.730 Klan Acts, approximately 3000 people, 50:40.730 --> 50:44.110 mostly white Southerners, were indicted for Klan 50:44.108 --> 50:46.478 violence--murder, intimidation, 50:46.480 --> 50:51.310 torture. Thousands were arrested. 50:51.309 --> 50:54.889 Many of those 3000 indicted pleaded guilty and got suspended 50:54.891 --> 50:58.291 sentences. About 600 were convicted, 50:58.288 --> 51:02.468 250 acquitted. Most received fines or light 51:02.467 --> 51:05.947 jail sentences. Sixty-five people were 51:05.948 --> 51:11.328 imprisoned for up to five years in a federal penitentiary in 51:11.334 --> 51:13.164 Albany, New York. 51:13.159 --> 51:21.159 All of them were out by 1875, before the Cruikshank Case. 51:21.159 --> 51:24.789 The thousands of people murdered by the Klan, 51:24.789 --> 51:28.589 the thousands tortured, the thousands kept from 51:28.585 --> 51:32.375 voting--sixty-five people were prosecuted. 51:32.380 --> 51:35.690 If you think back to the other day, that quotation I asked you 51:35.691 --> 51:39.241 to keep in your head, when Frederick Douglass gives 51:39.238 --> 51:43.038 that speech in 1875, imagining the following year 51:43.041 --> 51:44.781 the centennial of U.S. 51:44.784 --> 51:48.034 independence, and he worries about all the 51:48.033 --> 51:52.633 hosannas to American patriotism and to independence, 51:52.630 --> 51:58.690 and he says "if war among the whites brought freedom to 51:58.694 --> 52:04.314 blacks, what will peace among the whites bring?" 52:04.309 --> 52:12.079 It is a peace among the whites that was happening, 52:12.075 --> 52:15.745 by 1875. On Thursday we'll move this 52:15.749 --> 52:18.999 toward one of the ends of Reconstruction.